African Climes

Climate change is already affecting water availability, quality, quantity, access and security. Rising greenhouse concentrations are raising atmospheric temperatures and a hotter atmosphere has a higher capacity to absorb moisture. High temperatures result to increased evapotranspiration and this has two effects. First is that it dries up the areas over which water is evaporating, and it results to heavy rainstorms when this water distills as rain over other areas. Droughts and floods are common effects of climate change and they are predicted to increase globally as we surely inch towards the 1.5 degrees mark above preindustrial times. What this means is that water security - the state of having good quality water in abundance over short or long term durations - is directly impacted. Water security is needed in both natural ecosystems and the human world. Water quality is also determined by climate change as floodwaters can easily be contaminated by waste, poisoning fresh water so...

One of the global development goals agreed on universally is gender equality. Climate change is an issue of paramount global importance and clean water and sanitation is a human rights issue in many parts of the world. Gender, water and climate change are issues that are inextricably tied together. They are number 5, 6 and 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals.  Women are affected by climate change differently from men. And climate change is primarily felt through water. Most of climate change effects are water related. One of the ways that climate change affects women in the lens of water is in agriculture. A good percentage of the world’s agriculture is small holder, subsistence in nature and done in a rural setup. Majority of farmers in rural areas especially in Africa are women while most of agriculture is rain-fed. It relies on rainfall and precipitation patterns are increasingly being affected by climate change. Droughts, inadequate rainfall and heatwaves cause wate...

Health is impacted by climate change in various ways because the wellbeing of people depends on the environment which in turn is affected by climate change. Everything required to sustain life is provided for by a habitable environment. Oxygen, freshwater, soil on which plants grow, and even the building blocks of urbanization, all that is derived from nature. But in terms of climate change, health is influenced primarily through the very important lens of water. Statistics put 80% of the world facing water insecurity in one way or another. They don’t have a safe and reliable source of enough freshwater for all their needs. Climate change will cause water scarcity through droughts and heatwaves but also floods and inundation because of too much rain, cyclones or sea level rise. Young African Medics. Image by Tyck/Iwaria To begin with, lack of enough drinking water causes dehydration and eventually death of people in times of strong drought or heatwaves. Agriculture is controlled ...

Agriculture is what feeds the world and ensures food security. For millennia, people have tilled the land and kept animals to support themselves and provide food. Agriculture is a big economic sector on its own, with returns amounting to billions of shillings and employing millions of people. Agriculture is dependent on water supply for crop growth of which majority of this is rainfed. Rain-fed agriculture implies reliance on rainfall. Some of the optimal growth conditions for food and cash crops are temperature, moisture and sunlight. Now climate change basically means that the greenhouse effect and global warming has completely thrown the hydrological cycle out of balance. This water cycle is what controls rainfall, snow, ice and so on. Effects of climate change are all effects of water. This includes droughts, heavy rain and flash floods, heatwaves, permafrost thaw, cyclones and glacier retreat and sea level rise as well. All of these have to do with water – either too much of i...

Water is essential for life. To start with, every person on the planet (about 8 billion of us) need drinking water to survive. Climate change, population growth and economic development are increasingly putting pressure on freshwater supply from which drinking water is obtained. Supplies are finite and climate change is changing the availability, access and quality of drinking water. Normally, a large portion of human society relies on rainfall which recharges lakes and rivers (surface water) and aquifers (groundwater), as well as glaciers and snow which provide water in hot months. Climate change has altered the entire water cycle. Higher temperatures mean more water is removed from the earth’s surface through evapotranspiration. A warmer atmosphere absorbs more water vapour while more moisture in the air increases its ability to hold heat and on and on it goes. When this vapour cools it distills as heavy and sudden rain. Lack of enough drinking water caused by droughts, heatwaves...